Adam's Breed

It was one o'clock, clients were beginning to arrive, Daniele was ready and smiling. Gian-Luca stood silently waiting near the table by the window in his octagon room. It was ten past one, then a quarter-past one, then all of a sudden it was half-past; the room had filled up, all the tables were occupied except that one by the window. It was twenty to two; Gian-Luca stiffened, Doria and his friend were late. Stooping down, he fingered the red carnations, very slightly changing their angle. Then someone was coming in at the door, a woman, the little Milady; and after her followed a white-haired man who was taking off pale grey gloves.

All in a moment Gian-Luca perceived him; every detail struck through to his brain; a bulky, elderly man of sixty with a self-willed mouth that had weakened and coarsened, with pale eyes that looked small because of the skin that was gathered in bladders beneath them. A man with a face that looked foolish at that moment because it was close to Milady, or rather to Milady's elegant back which preceded it into the room.